How Does Green Factory Certification Affect Corporate Sustainability Performance: Evidence from China

Abstract

Achieving the transformation from “growth at the expense of the environment” to “growth through environmental protection” is an essential path for developing countries to promote sustainable economic and social development. This paper utilizes the staggered difference-in-differences model to empirically test the impact of the “Green Factory” policy under China’s green manufacturing system on corporate sustainable development performance in a large sample of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2023. The findings show that the level of corporate sustainable development performance significantly improves after being certified as a “Green Factory”. After a series of robustness tests such as the parallel trend test, placebo test, and heterogeneous treatment effects test, the promoting effect remains significant. This association is stronger among non-state-owned enterprises, enterprises in high-polluting industries, as well as enterprises with higher environmental information transparency. The mechanism tests reveal that participating in the “Green Factory” project enhance corporate sustainable development performance by attracting more green investors and promoting corporate green innovation. Overall, this paper provides micro-level empirical evidence for the driving factors of corporate sustainable development and offers policy evaluation and practical insights for the implementation of green manufacturing system and voluntary environmental regulation policies.